Dublin does Ireland proud for St Patrick’s Day

I’ve just got back from five glorious days in Dublin for the St Patrick’s Festival celebrations.

What a show they put on … full of music, dancing and zest for life. It was a fantastic event – possibly the best to date. It seemed as though all of Ireland had got fed up of all this gloomy recession talk and decided it was time to party.

And no one parties like the Irish – except perhaps the Americans, the Germans, the French, the Italians, the Spanish, the Brazilians … I could go on but you get the picture. Every nationality on the planet seemed to be there in huge numbers and having a fantastic time.

Celebrating in Dublin

Many of them were decked out in all the cliché Irish leprechaun type outfits and wore signs saying things like: ‘Kiss me I’m Irish’.

Perhaps the traditionalists will recoil from such commercialism but I have to say I think the whole thing was fantastic. There was something uplifting about seeing people of all nationalities mingling together and getting on famously as they wandered happily around Dublin in the glorious sunshine.

Yes, that’s right… there was glorious sunshine in Dublin in March – a whole five days of sun all the way through the festival.

Family fun

There were all sorts of attractions and festival events but the centrepiece of course was the St Patrick’s Day Parade. And what a parade it was. I won’t even try to describe it – just look at the pictures.

All I’ll say is that the floats kept coming with each one more imaginative, more outlandish and impressive than the one before. I got talking to a Brazilian couple who told me it was better than Rio.

Fantastic astmosphere

There was plenty of Irish music from the marching bands but there was far more to it than that –blues, jazz, rock, pop and so on … you name it and it was there.